Women in the trades

As I have no real idea who reads this blog I want to address this one to women who may be considering getting into the trades. The 'stars' of this entry will be the several women on our site who actually make it look easy. They are able to do this because of a mixture of personal characteristics of which having a thick skin seems to be the common element.

I think that thick skin is essential because the women here work in what is still a male dominated world known as construction. It is a tough world in that you work hard and are tired and you are a long way from your family and, and, and. As a coping mechanism we tend to use humor and that humor tends to be bawdy in nature. So if this sort of thing offends you for goodness sakes don't go into the trades!

For women with an ability to let that sort of stuff roll of their backs construction can be a very rewarding place to find one's self. For starters you are significantly out numbered by men and probably most of them will hit on you. But in the same joking manner they probably hit on each other too. Like I said before the humor is bawdy. And it is continuous.

I should also point out that accommodations are made for people who aren't as strong or as tall or as ... whatever as the men. In our trailer one of the favorites of the group is Britt. She also goes by Smurf, half-pint, Shrek and about anything else that a person can think up. She has a great sense of humor and gives it back at least as good as she gets it. But Britt isn't the tallest person in the world and even in her tiny little work boots (I want to get a pair from her to bronze and hang from my rear view mirror) she would be telling a stretcher if she claimed to be over 5 feet tall. But she works hard and pulls her weight. Let me tell you about some of her challenges and in advance say that she conquered them all.

Britt is an iron worker. As an apprentice (like me) we carry heavy loads, run to the tool crib 100 times a day, we 'pull cable' and we set up welder stations. At the moment Britt does all of these thing but not so much when we started. Instead she became the queen of the grinder. We men were told to pull cable (set up and/or chase various chords and cables usually about 6 feet in the air) and Britt was told to grind. We were told to unload heavy wire. Britt was told to grind. We carried heavy welding boxes upstairs. Britt was told to grind. And so on.

So all day long poor little Britt sat on a little wooden box and ground rough metal seams. All day long she sat with her little mask on under her faceshield and ground and ground and ground. I am guessing that about a thousand times a day she asked herself 'why the fuck am I doing this???' but to her credit she never quit. She never complained more than anyone else. She endured the aching arms and cramped hands. And she succeeded. And she got stronger. And slowly she started doing all those other things we apprentice Ironworkers do and she learned to do them well. That is probably why she is a favorite in our trailer. That and the fact that she looks like a cute little Ewok when loaded into her construction gear and when you add the voluminous safety gear to the equation.

There are other women on our site who are Ironworkers. Nicky is a foreman and is a good one. She knows her stuff, has an indomitable personality, is usually happy, and has a lot of respect on our site. And if she is angry watch out as she can spit fire from her eyes while chewing you up like a piece of gum. I don't know much else about Nicky other than the fact that she comes from a family of Ironworkers and has several relatives working onsite.

Kate is a certified Ironworker who I heard has 11 years on the tools. At the moment she is on contract with Waiward in some kind of safety capacity but I think she wants
To get back on the tools again. Ironworking does that to you. It gets into you blood and is hard to squeeze out. Kate is tall and beautiful and has a really attractive French accent but you wouldn't want to tick her off! Like Nicky she takes no shit and is formidable when crossed. Even the male Formen are afraid to cross her!

A few articles ago I mentioned our close and symbiotic relationship with the scaffolders. There are a lot of women in this trade although we only work closely with 2. Emma is a third year apprentice and comes from a long line of scaffolders. She has both a father and a brother working in the trade. Emma works in a crew with two men who are both journeymen and that fact surprised me when I found out as it looked like she was running the crew! Emma has a happy disposition and is quick to share both smiles and humor with everyone and anyone. And there is always a hint of mischief in her freckled green eyes. Emma makes her trade look easy even though it is probably not. She would be a good mentor to anyone entering the trade.

Yvonne is another scaffolder and like Emma is a third year apprentice. Like me she is past her 20s and is possibly past her 30s too. Like Britt she is not the tallest person on the planet. But she works hard and pulls her weight and does so with a smile on her face.

So basically there are some common traits found in women who are successful in the trades. The thick skin and ability to dish back the rough humor that is a daily reality. A good disposition makes it work better too. And finally the confidence to do the hard work without complaint would be another important feature. But hey, these are also the characteristics a man requires for success in the trades too! And that IS as it should be now isn't it?

There are some women who come up here for more than just the work. Some women come up looking for an mrs degree (as in becoming Mrs. Somebody or other). But these people tend to not last too long. This really is a place where only the strong survive. Male or female.

A Culture of Safety

I hate it when some big wig from a company further up the corporate chain comes into our trailer to talk safety with us. They inevitably have a heavy Yankee accent and a tone of voice that sounds less than genuine. This guy was classic. He said: "ah bin sent here from Esso because Esso is walkin' the tawk.' This obviously made very little sense to anyone but he went on anyway: "Ahm here as an extra set uv eyes on accounta your safety record has bin less'n stellar." After this the clown act blabbed for a few more minutes in his artificially sympathetic Yankee drawl about our families being dependent on our health. He even held up a photo of some kid in his Dad's work boots which for dramatic affect he finished off by tearing in two. We dubbed him the picture-ripper.

His Yankee chat got me thinking about a culture of safety. Theoretically he was there to reinforce or to build up our safety culture. But he went about it in the completely wrong way. I know this to be true as I studied organizational design in graduate school. It was pretty clear that coming in and criticizing our track record and then using a dramatic ploy to scare us would be similar to pouring boiling water on a seedling and hoping it would grow. Besides, he was misinformed about our safety record.

I work with the welders and our safety record actually is pretty stellar. One guy got one little burn and that's it. Multiple guys welding every day and no injuries. Multiple guys grinding every day and only 3 eye injuries in 18 months. I am not commenting on other crews but am simply pointing out that our crew has a great record and it is because of the solid culture of safety that we have developed.

For a safety culture to mean anything or to be successful it has to start at the grass roots level. Our trailer is a good example. First it begins with the Foremen and at the start of each day during the toolbox talks. Ours last a full half hour where some crews' last less than 10 minutes which we know because their guys come in to get gear from our trailer and in doing so interrupt our meeting. Our meetings are longer. Because our Foremen (Mario and Greg) really focus on the safety during our meeting. No matter which one leads the meeting it is sprinkled with anecdotes from their broad experience (both have over 30 years in the field and 'on the tools'). The message they give is sincere and it is echoed and reinforced by the senior Journeymen in the group. But it doesn't stop there.

The message from our toolbox talks is carried by the journeymen out to the site and they live it out on the job. Our crew had a big job welding hoisting lugs onto some pieces of heavy wear plate. These things weighed in the neighborhood of 100+ pounds each so the chances of getting pitched fingers or of dropping them on our toes was significant. Add to that the fact that we were outside and that it snowed heavily each day and there was a huge potential for injury. In the end there was none.

There were no injuries because we had the right reinforcement from above. At toolbox we went over all the potential problems with the Foremen and worked out solutions. In the field the Journeymen made sure we started with shovelling and putting down sand for traction. Whenever we carried a plate we talked over our route and in advance knew the process for putting it down without hurting each other. The Senior Journeyman on the job even led the way in picking up any warning tape or earplug packets that were on the ground and which represented trip hazards. As a result there were no injuries.

There is a lesson in all of this. For a successful culture to be developed the message must be genuine. It must be believed and lived by the senior crew level guys. It must be lived and practiced by the senior crew-level workers. And it must be looked at as having real value for the transfer of skills from senior guys to junior guys to take place. And it should be a point of pride with the crew as it is for us.

So parachuting in senior Yankees to put us down works against what our crew has worked so hard to achieve. I am just glad that our crew is tight enough to throw off the Yankee paper-ripper's bullshit. And I am even more glad that Foreman Greg said at a recent meeting how proud he was of our record. He added: "That paper-ripper doesn't know what he's talking about. Our record is stellar and it's because of all of you. I am so proud to be part of this crew!" What Greg didn't realize is that the picture-ripping Yank was standing at the end of the trailer and heard what we thought of both him and his detrimental approach. This time the Yankee didn't say a thing but simply stood there glowing red.

Geared up for safety

While watching a fellow worker put on their copious safety gear I was reminded of a scene from the old film Kat Ballou. In the movie the aged gunfighter played by Lee Marvin is going through the process of gearing up for an impending gunfight. The amount of gear he puts on borders on the rediculous but that is the point that they are trying to make. All he really needs is his gun. That scene is also a fun little poke at the old books about the Knights of the round table. In those books the knight was always dressed for battle by a squire. It transformed him from being a normal looking man to being seemingly impenetrable.

Safety gear and those things on the 'absolute' list of things to wear are kind of like that. Some pieces, like the hard hat for instance, are things no iron worker would leave at home regardless of whether it was necessary or not. I have personally banged my hat on lots of low roofs this job and imagine that it has 'saved me' many times. To the safety folks though all of are gear is necessary and makes us somewhat impenetrable.

Some of the safety gear requirement are knee jerk reactions to some injury or other. I think having us wear 'stripes' and 'yak traks' fall into this category. With the stripes (fluorescent striping so that you can be seen at night) probably became an absolute when someone was hit by a vehicle as a result of not being seen. But that 'not being seen' probably happened at night. Now we have to wear those stupid things whenever we work day or night. The problem is that they get caught on everything you walk past and I have personally almost been flung from a ladder as a result of such a hookup. I have caught it on scaffolding, on materials, on ladders and on doors. It is far more dangerous than not wearing it at all. Besides, they get dirty so quickly that they wouldn't reflect light anyway.

Having to wear yak traks over our boots is the same sort of thing. Someone probably fell on ice so a safety Whig came up with these as a solution. The fact that even the packaging that they come in warns that on any surface other than snow these become dangerous must have missed their eye. As anyone who has worked in construction knows there are hundreds of different surfaces on every site. And according to said packaging they are all dangerous if walked on with these so called safety items.

I have a feeling that behind all the safety insanity lies Workers Comp. I bet every time someone gets injured the comp payments go up unless one of the safety fools can think up a brilliant solution. Pretty soon we will have kickstands on our work boots and Darth Vader helmets! Our gloves will be made of steel and we will wear chain link to protect our chests and legs. And pretty soon we will need a squire to dress us in all this shit. So thinking back to our knight of old I ask you this: is safety gear moving forward or backward?

Cha-cha-cha-cha changes...

Yesterday was an odd one sprinkled liberally with both good and bad. During our tool box talk the head Foreman dressed us down for what he perceived as slights made against a 40 year member who had parted ways with the company the day before. At the end of the talk I got his message and felt both tuned in and ashamed all at the same time.

The day started out very cold and so I was heavily dressed in anticipation. I hate being cold and especially hate having my fingers go numb which they did. I forgot to mention but during the morning meeting they had promised to have a barbeque for us at lunch and I wondered how thrilling that would be in the cold. Still, a BBQ is. BBQ and I looked forward to it anyway.

Of course you can't have a BBQ without propane and as an apprentice I was picked to get it down to the designated area. Not by my self of course but with big Mitch who is another apprentice. Mitch recently turned 19 which usually means the person lacks motivation but not Mitch. He comes from a cattle farm and is a great big farm boy who is used to working hard. So moving the propane with him wasn't too bad as the tank only weighed about 120lbs (100 of it being the gas) and Mitch did most of the lifting part.

On a site like ours where safety is of the utmost importance you can't just pick up the tank and carry it. As we needed to move it from the surge deck down to the ground and then across the road we took a dolly (hand truck) and strapped the tank into it. We then took it down the back stairs so we could avoid raising and problems from the safety folks. Bad choice I guess as all the site safety people from our company, from Krupp, from Fleur and from Imperial Oil were all asseming at the bottom of the stairs in order to do a safety walk and we didn't see them till we took the turn halfway down the stairs. I am guessing the the safe way to move propane down stairs IS in a dolly with a man above and a man below as we didn't even draw their attention much less get fired!

By lunchtime the weather had changed for the better. The sun was out and it was warm enough to leave the coat in the trailer and just wear a hoodie while standing in the line. Lots of us had happy smiles on our faces and the line was filled with laughter from the typical bawdy humor that is the norm with both iron workers and with welders. It was a nice way to lose some of the angst that starts to build up after almost 20 straight days of 10 hour a day work. To top it off they gave us extra time to eat so we were a little more relaxed.

As we don't have a field or picnic tables we a ate in our trailers. That is where the union stewart found me with his message that I had been 'redeployed' as a 1st year apprentice (same site) and was now making $4/hr more! Pretty good news indeed!

The rest of the day was fairly peaceful. I was nice and relaxed and focused on my grinding. The weather did the Alberta thing... it snowed, then was warm, then was cold, and then looked like rain was imminant. Typical and not distracting. This shift is winding down which is good. I am deep bone tired but will make it. And I will make it at an extra $4 per hour!

Trades, trades and more trades!

Most of the welders we work with come from our local and some are iron workers as well. That said not all of them are both. Some come from the boiler makers hall and some are pipe fitters. The fact that this is Kearl and that there are lots of jobs closer to Edmonton means that a lot of these guys come from other provinces where they aren't blessed with as much work.

We are not the only trade on site. There are electricians working through Integral. There are millwrights working through their hall. I think they are working setting up the cladding which forms the outside walls of our building. But the ones we work the most closely with are the scaffolders.

Scaffolders build scaffolding. They are a separate trade through the carpenters union which makes sense when you consider that scaffolding used to be made out of wood and held together with nails. It's now made from aluminum tubes of various lengths which are held together with these cool little brackets that pop on an off quite easily. They also have floor pieces and stair pieces. For the most part the scaffolding is pretty ingenious and looks kind of the way it would if it was designed by Ikea.

We work inside the surge bins whose walls you could never get up without the scaffolding. The scaffolders work in little pods of organization that flow smoothly from work zone to work zone erecting and tearing down scaffolding at a pretty amazing rate. They remind me a lot of ants as they just go, go, go.

With any scaffolding project the first step is moving in the materials that they will need. They do store some tubes and things in the bin but most is outside somewhere. So they form a pod on the ground and another on the surge deck and they handbalm the stuff to the edge of the surge in much the same was buckets of water used to be passed along when fighting a fire. Then using gin wheels or rigging ropes it is pulled up to the surge deck where the process repeats itself in order to move the stuff into the actual bins themselves.

The scaffolders are kind of unique amongst the trades as they all dress the same way. They are provided with medium blue coveralls with the reflective green stripes sewn right onto them. This adds to the appearance of ant-like proficiency. You can always tell the scaffolders from everyone else on site and when you need them they are easy to find.

We work closely with the scaffolders so we feel as if we are part of the same big crew. We keep them working and they do the same for us. Because we work closely with them we share a lot of small talk and as a result we get to know them pretty well. They work the same shift as us as well which adds to the feeling of oneness amongst us.

Scaffolding in a neat trade with lots of busy work but none of it too seriously heavy or difficult. As a result there are some older guys working in the trade and a fair number of women. Their life is wait-wait-wait then carry-clamp-hammer or hammer-unclamp-carry. Their trade works side by side with ours symbiotically and as far as I can tell everyone is happy about it. We transform the structure and they transform the spaces beside it. I for one appreciate the scaffolders!

Cold, Shiny Metal

We were grinding some weld seams at the 21,939 level when it occurred to me just how nice the shiny metal looks when it's done. You see when they weld two giant plates of steel together it leaves a cap protruding from each side like a scab and that has to be ground flush before wear plates can be welded over the top of them. The caps look like 5-7 shiny metal earth worms laying on top of each other and I think they look really neat too. Although it is a shame to grind them down from an optics perspective the smooth and shiny look of them when done makes up for the metamorphosis.

That was two days ago on a warm spring day. Yesterday however started with a lot of snow and a strong cold wind from the north with a windchill factor of -19. It didn't even resemble the day before in any way. And when I arrived back up in the surge to work on my precious seams again it was covered (as was the whole wall) with a layer of snow and ice. Not my nice looking metal from the day before!

We don't get to go home just because it is freezing cold and the metal is covered. Instead we go and get a tiger torch which is sort of like a propaned powered flame thrower. We get that little. Any fired up and the. Start warming the icy metal. As you melt the ice it turns to water and rolls off the seam like a river of tears. The seam liked hiding apparently and is loathe to give up its snowy jacket. I guess I'd feel the same way if someone were planning on grinding me down all day!

When the metal has been heated and all the snow is gone the seam now looks like rusted old metal. This in around 12 hours! What a change! So I stood there yesterday with a freezing wind ripping through my clothing very much like a grinder and it occurred to me how much my metal and I were in fact alike.

As an iron worker or a welder you develop little ways of keeping the cold out. Obviously many layers of warm clothing is the start but even with that stuff in place my hands and feet were like lifeless white chunks. I think that's the human equivalent of rusty metal! So off I went to the tool crib where I got Terry to give me some little heat pads for both my hands and my feet. I then headed to the warmup shack where I could take my boots off and get the little waking pads hooked onto my toes before putting the boots back on. Step two completed I headed back to the icy metal.

Months ago when I first started iron working and the temperature wAs routinely in the minus thirties with wind hills taking it down into the minus forties I discovered what a hoarding was. Welders need to put up fire blankets to protect others from their flying sparks and from their welding flash. But in the extreme cold they get fire blanket on all four sides, underneath them and then they add a roof. These little homes are referred to as hoardings. Once inside the welder gets his tiger torch going on a wall and they keep it there until the metal is hot enough to radiate heat for the next half hour of so. The hoarding keeps the warmth in and protects the welder from the wind allowing him to get down to grinding or welding until the cold returns and he has to start the process again.

Yesterday with the wind howling and ripping a cold path through my clothing I built a wall from the fire blanket to protect the welding inspector who I have been working with and myself. It barely had any impact but it was a start. The welding instructor is a good guy named Rasheed. He is from Nigeria in Africa where it is very hot even when the locals say it is cold. I wonder how he must feel about this cold and whether he finds himself thinking on days like this: "What the hell did I move to this frozen continent for???" That said he is a hearty fellow and he works his ultrasound equipment mostly without even having gloves on. I have a lot of respect for that. But yesterday it was freezing and he had caught a cold the day before and so was terribly stuffed up. So not long into our day I talked him into taking a walk to the tool crib where I got the poor guy so hand and feet warmers and took him to the warmup shack to thaw out.

Then we were. Ack up staring at the cold seam. I took my grinder and pushed it hard against the cold rusty seam and worked it back and forth for a while. The sound of the grinder ripped into the air and the sparks showered into the fire blanket screen that I had put up. I wiped some sweat from my forehead and admired the beauty of the freshly polished metal. Shiny, smooth and nice.

Getting Cranky!

I am starting to get a little cranky. If this was a normal rotation I would have arrived home yesterday and I'd be in bed right now beside my wife. Not on a bus heading to work! Despite today being a double bubble day I am running on low energy and don't have my usual quota of 'happy'. It will take some effort to keep the frustration level down!

I noticed my crankiness this morning. Oh, I slept well enought last night. In bed by 8 and out like a light moments later. And I only got up once in the night to use the loo which is unusual for me. But after breakfast in the dining room I headed to the bag-up or lunch room and that is where it hit me!

Have you ever been in a somewhat crowded place and every time you reach for something some douche bag steps in front of you and just doesn't get out of the way? Today was probably no different from any other day except to me everyone seemed to be invading my zone! I kept hearing echoes of my Jman from our trailer with his sage old advice: "When in doubt, knock them out!" it was all I could do to keep civil.

I heard somewhere that there is what happens and then there is what you make of it. So why is it when I am low on gas and deep down tired do I make more of these situations than they clearly call for? You would think in those situations that I would make less of these issues as I have less energy to deal with them. But no! Instead I want to make a big deal of the nothing that is going on.

I do know the right way to deal with this sort of situation. The secret is to not trust yourself and to not listen to the voice inside that tells you to react. I also need to focus on the good things like the nice weather and the fact that I will be getting double time today which even at my low rate works out to 75 cents a minute. I have lots of things to spend that money on too!

I can't wait till I am a Journeyman (Jman). They will make $800/day for the next week and the Foremen will make a cool $1,000! I am a pre-apprentice still so I only make $20/hr but at the end of this turn I will have 3 months in and will be moved to the category of 1st year apprentice and will get a raise to about $24/hr. If I can get my 1,500 hours in before the end of the summer and get into the pre-apprentice course for the fall I will be raised to $28/hr. the extra $8/hr represents a out $16,000 of extra income (before taxes) so that is not a bad raise for 2/3 of a year on the tools. Besides, Waiward is and has been paying for my flights since I started and that is worth around another $800-$1,000 every 3 weeks.

Wow! That's not too bad really! Actually it's really good! Oddly enough I think I just got my 'happy' back!

Kearl Island: International Center of the Universe

I was walking back to my room this morning with two lunch bags stuffed to the brim with assorted gastronomic junk when I passed a small herd of Newfies in the hall. You can always to folks from the rock for several reasons. Firstly they are a very friendly lot unless pissed off (or sometimes when they are pissed drunk). Secondly they usually hang out with other people from the same province. But perhaps the main reason is because they speak so fast and with such an accent that you have no chance of understanding them.

This morning was no exception. The guy who was speaking said something like this: "Well hammuna dreuy fok n dat udder fokin yanner fok!" Did you get any of that? Me either. Which got me to thinking how many people here can barely be understood by the majority. Or maybe they are the majority. The fact is that here at Kearl being of international origin is really a common thing.

Let's face it, the conditions aren't exactly wonderful here or we would 't be paid so well to be here. It gets cold as a post-cruise swim from the Titanic here. And when it's not busy being hot it's either muddy, dusty or hot! Or maybe several of the above at the same time. The people that work here have to endure being generally outside for 10+ hours a day for 14-24 days straight. Add in the long and pointless bus rides that start and end each of those days. Recognize that we are a long way from our spouses and partners. And then consider the constant limestone dust ever present from the halls in the morning to the road into work and including the worksite. I think everyone up here is just a little crazy!

You recall in past posts I have mentioned my affection for outdoors related literature? Being up at Kearl reminds me a lot of the Robert Service poem 'The Law of the Yukon' which was written about gold prospectors from around 100 or more years ago. It starts: "This is the law of the Yukon and ever she makes it plain 'Send not your foolish and feeble, send me your strong and your sane'". The poem could be describing Kearl from nowadays except that as I said I think most people up here are a little bonkers. I'm just not sure if the were like that before they arrived or whether it affected them upon arrival.

On our crew we have several internationals from various parts of the world and with various levels of English. There is a guy from China originally and another guy from Vietnam. We have a Jamaican joining the crew today (he is transferring in from another crew) and there are several French guys crew. Various parts of Eastern Canada. The French guys generally speak English well but will speak French with each other. The Chinese guy hardly speaks English at all so tends to stay quiet most of the time. Finally the Vietnamese guy speaks slightly better English than the Chinese guy in that he can and does use the words 'shit' and 'fok' liberally in every sentence.

The head foreman of our crew is an experienced guy in working with crews of mixed origin. I came to realize that he pairs the guys whose English is still in the works with native Canadian speakers. I realized that he does this so that during toolbox talk in the morning he can ask the native Canadian speaker for the update on the team's progress.

Sometimes the communications issues can lead to some funny situations. One day the big Frenchman from our crew (I'll call him Jean for now) asked the Chinese guy how you say 'Nice car' in Chinese. The Chinese guy, not really understanding the question, responded 'Nisah car.' It was really pretty funny. But Jean, whose English isn't that good either, has since been saying: 'Nisah car' 20 times a day and is driving everyone else in the trailer nuts.

It doesn't matter where you come from when you are up in Kearl. The most important things are whether you pull your weight and whether you do a good job. If you can manage those things you will always be welcome here.

Family Canoe Trips

My Dad was and is an outdoorsman at heart. With his father he had learned how to canoe and camp, and how to hunt and fish. All of these things (except the hunting) were things that he has passed on to us, his children. And seeing as how he had 5 children we were generally pretty close to broke and so out of doors trips were the grand vacations of our youth.

It is probable that I was infected with the outdoors bug directly from my father. I certainly spent about 80% of my time in my childhood thinking of the outdoors, reading survival and outdoors themed books, or actually hiding out in whatever wooded lot happened to be handy. Most summers when vacation time came along I looked forward to our annual canoe trips to famous outdoors spots.

We really did canoe around a lot of far off parts of Ontario. Several times we went to Algonquin park. We spent two weeks in the interior of Quetico National Park. And there were several other places whose name I can no longer remember but whose waters and shores I will never forget.

Having said all that I have about how often we canoed one might get the impression that we were experts and were also organizational geniuses. Far from it! As I mentioned earlier we were a big family without much money so our equipment was pretty basic. And the trips were often planned not long in advance by my workaholic Dad.

Sometime in the early spring my Dad would start thinking about where we should go in the upcoming summer. Seemingly out of his head he would pull the name of some far off place and would then order the detailed terrain maps of the area from whatever government ministry was responsible. This is how we learned about far-off places like the Missinibi and the Magnasippi Rivers. Or the French River. Or North Bay and Wawa. They would show up and we would see these places for the first time in the pleasant green of the topographical maps. He had long ago started teaching us how to read them so we could pick out the routes and see where the portages were marked and I would start dreaming of being out there in the wild nestled into a canoe.

Of course then my Dad would get busy with work and wouldn't even think about the trip for quite a while except maybe to call and order canoes from an outfitter before we finally bought our own. Eventually his vacation days would start arriving. In those days you couldn't yet buy granola and trail mix in the stores so we would have to make our own. So in the kitchen my mother would be baking up honey covered oatmeal and mixing it with dried fruit from the. Ulk store and then bagging it. Ziplock bags hadn't been invented yet either so these were bags big enough to hold a full size chicken that were closed with wire twist-ties. Once in a while we would also buy pre-packaged freeze dried meals from the Outdoors Store (a chain store long since faded into the past) but generally not.

I should mention packing here as it was done a little differently than one might expect. We would have been told to get ready and for me I would have packed a week in advance and used the best napsack. But as I was one of 5 kids (and a Labrador retriever) the others weren't always ready in advance. So then Dad would pack for them and their napsack would be a garbage bag!

Our mode of transportation was one of those big old AMC station wagons with the wood panelling on the sides. No matter how one tried to pack that to maximize space it wasn't going to happen. Especially when some of the suitcases were made by the good people from Glad! Imagine the front seat with both parents and one kid, probably my sister Gillian as she was the smallest, jammed into the front seat. Behind them in the bench seat were my older brother Andy, my older sister Nancy, myself, and my younger brother James. Now imagine the it dog laying at our feet. The back of the car would be packed floor to ceiling with sundry supplies. It was like a scene from National Lampoons Vacation movies!

As a small digression you will recall my mentioning the haphazard way that we had of packing? On one trip deep into the heart of Quetico park we realized far too late that we had forgotten to bring food for the fat old dog. Lady would have been about 8 years old at this point. Anyway we figured that we could always feed her left overs from our meals. In the end there really weren't too many things we didn't eat and so the dog started losing weight. At the start of the two week trip she was big and slow moving. It by the end she was much lighter and faster! I think she started eating the odd squirrel or chipmunk at that time and one day she even barfed up a bass that she must have caught and swallowed whole in the shallow water!

Being that there were so many of us and only two adults we always we in two very long canoes that were packed to the gunnels in much the same fashion as the car had been. As I recall when we were launching for these trips people would often come down to watch us pack and to speculate on our odds of survival. Crazy as it sounds we never ever had a canoe tip! My dad was far to good an outdoorsman for that!

One thing I remember about those trips is how drawn I was to the fishing. We went in to such wild locations that the fishing was often fantastic. I had a habit of getting up at 5am or whenever the day broke at which point I would grab my fishing rod and run to the water. I caught so many incredible fish on those trips and they often turned into breakfast!

I don't want to bore you with all the details of our camping experience especially when the whole purpose of bringing it up was to point out how significantly I was influenced by 'the wilds'. In those days fishing and camping and making snares and other survival related things were my everything. I had some hidden vision of being 'the boy against the wilderness'. I suspect that is because in our home I always felt so powerless. At school my ADHD and the fact that we moved every 2 years meant I was an outsider and did not feel accepted. And as a boy the only place that I felt I could go and be in control of my own destiny was in the bush.

I am going to leave off here for today and will probably get back to writing about Kearl and the job for a while. Thanks for reading!

Day 10 is behind us so only 14 to go!

We had the 24 day shift sprung on us. Literally. We had just gotten back from our trips home and everyone was all smiles. Then Foreman Greg let the cat out of the bag at tool talk. "oh bye the way," he said in an offhand sort of way "they decided we are going to be working a 24 instead of a 14."

You can imagine how that little announcement changed the mood in the room! Instant quiet and shock. At first everyone was pissed off. How could you not be? Finding out last second and all. Packing for 14 days and working 24 instead. Mutiny was in the air.

After a few minutes of this someone saw some bright spots in the 24. First it meant that every day after the 14th (or maybe it's just the 7 after the 14th ... not clear on that one yet) would be at double time. Someone else looked it up on the tape at the hall and realized that it came with guaranteed flights across Canada. And then they added that the at-home part of the swing would be 7 days instead of the usual 4 in these cases so people were happier. Everyone would be taking home lots of money. And for me I would be getting a huge chunk of hours towards the 1,500 I need to have banked in order to take the apprentice course this fall that will raise me to a 2nd year apprentice.

Now we are 10 days in and just starting what would be a normal shift. 14 days left. Physically I am starting to get tired. I sleep 8 hours a night but I am 46 a d my body needs time to recover. And I miss my wife. And I miss my dog. And I want to play in my garden which is my wonderful summer distraction. And lets face it, after 10 days a man really wants a woman! As the song from Rocky Horror Picture Show goes: "I have an itch to scratch, I want affection."

Some one once said that the purpose of a liberal education was to make one's mind a pleasant place to spend one's quiet time" and I agree. I don't actually get time where I can sit under a tree and contemplate the clouds or anything but while doing repetitive tasks my mind is my own. So I fight off negativity and those self-crucifying thoughts that make you want to do something stupid so you can get sent home and instead I thinks about pleasant things. Like times I spent with my wife Juju. Or things I want to do in my garden. Or rivers I have fished. Or golf courses I have played. Anything but the voice of self-destruction the is ever present and looms just around the corner.

I am not suggesting that I am not paying any attention while grinding or doing dangerous tasks. Instead I find that I have 2 trains of thought running simultaneously and one is always locked onto the task at hand while the other does it's own thing. It's own thing I do have control of though and that is what allows me to do this job for many days straight and not go nuts in the process.

There are lots of positives to focus on. I have done lots of 14s and that is a that is left. In 2 days we are at the halfway point (effectively at the end of tomorrow). Thursday will be a payday and as there are 7 days on it (the boys call these 'a ringer') it will be a good one. Thursday will also be the start of our double-time. And then there are the Stanley Cup playoffs which are just starting and my Vancouver Canucks are in them. So all in all things are goi g pretty well.

But do you know what I miss the most? I love sex like the next person but that's not it. Not golf. Not fishing. I miss waking up spooned next to my wife with our little dog laying by our feet and the cat purring away on the other side of my wife. And when I am down or am fighting the urge to run for the door I stop myself and drive my mind to that place. The place where I am most comfortable in the whole world. And I tell myself that the pain now is part of the pleasure then.

Every day is Wednesday...

We are currently working a 24 day in a row shift and it is very different psychologically. Part of the reason is because apart from the first day and perhaps the last day all days seem the same. Weekends mean nothing because we work them. Fridays mean nothing because we work the weekends. So in reality every day feels like a Wednesday.

The fact is that our life is broken down into 2 to 2 1/2 hour sound bites. We start at 7am with 'toolbox talk' where we discuss safety issues and the workplan for the day. For our crew that lasts about 1/2 an hour. Then we are out to the site until 2 hours later when we have first coffee. Then we are back out for 2 hours and 15 minutes until lunch. After lunch we work 2 1/2 more hours till second coffee. After that it is 2 hours and we are done. So like the days of the week the hours of the day sort of mush into each other. Everything is just one super-long day!

While I am on the subject I just want to address this habit of calling our breaks 'coffee'. There are no coffee shops around in the woods here. There is no coffee pot in our trailer. And I think I am the only one who actually drinks coffee during the breaks. I guess old habits die hard in the construction world.

Another example of old habits might be when concrete work comes up. Rather than say 'get the concrete crew' they simply say 'call the Portugese'. Oddly enough there aren't many Potugese who still do concrete work. But they used to. In fact they used to do all of the concrete work so that is where the term comes from. I heard a joke one time that goes: "how do you break up a Portugese wedding?" The answer is:"Tell them there is a Readymix truck at the gate!" the only Portugese guy I know in construction is a welder but as I said before old habits die hard.

Getting back to my Wednesday analogy our working every day causes the odd problem with friends back home. I can't count the times I have texted someone at 6am thinking they would be getting ready for work and the. Realized it is a Saturday! Not a good way to keep one's friends!

I have to admit that some of my friends here in camp disagree with my 'Everyday is Wednesday' idea. My buddy Matt for instance disagreed with me. His reason had to do with the menu back at camp. You see Wednesday is either steak or Prime Rib day which from a purely gastronomic standpoint is the best day of the week. He suggested everyday is Thursday. But I disagree with that one as Thursday is payday. Even if we can't do anything with the money due to isolation at least we know it's there. And besides, Thursday is the day before Friday which is traditionally last day of the work-week. So that won't do either!

Maybe the best way to share the experience of work life here is to not compare it to a day but rather to a flavour. How about every day is vanilla day? Or maybe that isn't bland enough. Maybe it would be best to say every day is Melbatoast day. That gives the impression
Of each being the same as the last. It also gives the sense of the blandness of each when considered on its own.

Either way I suspect you can see the regimented way our life works. It isn't boring. It in a lot of ways it is the same. But different.

Friends, Romans and Chariots

When you live in an isolated place miles from home one of the most important things in your life becomes your friends. That is assuming that you are the sort of person who makes friends. But your routine drives you and logically (when you can) you steer it in their direction.

Friends are more than just co workers. Friends are the ones you care enough about to share their hurts. Friends are the ones that notice when something is wrong. Friends have your back when trouble arises. And friends are the people who you will likely keep in touch with long after the job is finished.

I have to admit that the first friends I made here were smoking buddies. You see them every day in the smoking pit and when the banter starts you gravitate to the ones whose stories you enjoy. Then you start sneaking smokes with them on the job when getting caught would mean instant firing. And in the first 2 or 3 turnarounds these were the guys who I would meet outside the front doors of the camp when our bus pulled in after work, standing in a circle telling funny stories about how the day went. That circle was flexible by the way. It opened to allow new people into the conversation and closing up as they left. It was very much like a tidal pool which expands with the incoming waves and decreases as they wash back out. Only in the case the waves were people arriving and leaving with the bus fleet.

That group of friends fizzled a bit. Two of the core group of four left the company and I quit smoking. I feel bad because I feel like I am letting the last guy, Herc, down. But he has been transferred to our crew now so he will move into our trailer and will mesh in well with our usual 'trailer talk'. Our trailer crew is now excellent. When several of us joined that crew together several turns ago the conversation seemed to be dominated by some veteran Ironworkers/welders who were totally negative about everything. But after the first turn we lost a couple of cranky guys who quit. Then they made another cranky guy foreman so he not only moved out of the trailer but he stopped being cranky! Finally another miserable old bugger moved on as well. With the leaving of these guys some newer people that are not miserable moved into our trailer and now we have bonded into a fun little crew. We tell jokes and tease all through each of the 3 daily breaks. Mostly our group are young although there are a few old vets in the crew that are fun people and who tend to bring more sunshine than rain. It is a good group.

Of that group several of us meet first thing in the morning in brass alley. As most of us don't smoke we don't stand outside and line up but rather step into the alleys themselves and wait just before the turnstiles for the light to turn green. That might be the most fun of the day and as I mentioned people do steer their schedules to accommodate friends. This is no exception. We all end up in the alley at around 5:35 even though the lanes don't open until quarter to and the busses don't depart until 6am. It is our happy time. How we start the day in a frame of mind that will allow us to work 24 straight 10 hour days that have an additional 45 minutes worth of bus rides attached to each end.

Actually it continues right onto the bus. And the group of friends expands once we board the bus because by routine several people always sit where we always sit and they too become a part of the fun. That being said, once the bus gets going most people either fall fast asleep or alternatively put their head phones on and tune out. But the fun will resume once we arrive at work and hit the trailers. It will continue through our 'toolbox talk' first thing in the morning. And it won't end unlit the last of the group slowly flows out the door and disipates into the worksite. But no worries. We will wash back in at the next break and it will all start again.

I wanted to end with that paragraph above but this is a note I wanted to add. Apart from Down-town Brown I have avoided talking about particular people or naming names. I wanted to figure out a way to do it without offending anyone. Very shortly I am going to start and I suspect this will add a lot of rich fabric to the text and texture of my writing.